The present invention relates to an assist tool for chopsticks used for training the way to hold chopsticks.
As an assist tool of this type, for example, there has been known an assist tool where a coupling member made from elastic material such as urethane rubber is disposed between upper and lower chopsticks so that distal ends of the chopsticks can be opened and closed while a proper spacing is being maintained between rear ends of the chopsticks (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2003-275085).
The above described assist tool is excellent in that the proper spacing between upper and lower chopsticks can be maintained so that a user can acquire the proper spacing naturally. However, such a case occurs sometimes that a toddler beginning to use chopsticks cannot make judgment about a portion of his or her hand which holds two chopsticks and he or she does not make progress in how to use chopsticks to his or her satisfaction due to unstableness on chopsticks holding. That is, in how to hold chopsticks which is correct, a user should push a lower chopstick to a portion of a hand portion near to his or her thumb and the vicinity of the base of his or her forefinger to fix the same. Therefore, when the user holds the lower chopstick even in the above-described assist tool, he or she can hold the upper chopstick naturally. However, unless the user can master such a positional relationship between the fingers and the chopsticks, the user may hold the upper and lower chopsticks unstably.